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In our Friday articles, I take a deep dive into the current state of Bitcoin. Every Friday I will continue to publish brief State of Bitcoin newsletters to keep subscribers up to date on news from the Bitcoin industry. For full disclosure, Brandon is a strong believer in Bitcoin and has allocated portions of his portfolios to BTC (HODL baby).
Top stories from the week:
Based Jack is Loose: Ever since Jack Dorsey has left Twitter he has been ratio’ing people on replies, going at ETH developers, and overall just going at trolls. It seems the biggest thing holding Jack back was the Twitter board. We’ve also seen Cory from Swan publicly go at Pomp and Bitcoiners exposing Zuby for shitcoinery recently. Overall I think what people describe as “toxic Bitcoin maximalism” is not necessarily bad because at the end of the day people are going to think what they want. Coming at people publicly won’t change much, but I believe it is important to call out giant public figures because someone's perception may be that someone with a large following may know what they’re talking about when in reality they’re in it for the money. So good on Jack, Cory, and Bitcoin plebs for going at these shitcoiners and hopefully more good will come from it.
Bitcoin Shoes, Bitcoin Miami, Bitcoin Marketing?: Spencer Dinwiddie partnered with Bitrefill to create custom “Bitsneaks” that display live Bitcoin price, block height and other Bitcoin related metrics directly on the sneakers. The shoes come with cellular data to track these Bitcoin specific metrics and light up the LED screen on the side of the shoes. Overall, I think Bitcoin “marketing” has taken a turn for the worse. This seems like a scheme with too much needless tech in shoes in order to promote Bitcoin, almost making Bitcoin seem scammy. Between this and the Bitcoin conference seemingly becoming the Bitcoin Influencer Conference (as dubbed by Joey from the Canadian Bitcoiners Pod), it seems Bitcoin is moving to more of a flashy approach where it is now “cool” to own or know about Bitcoin. I hope this does not turn people away, but in the end I think its a short term negative for the space and hope true Bitcoiners open up their eyes and recognize this quickly. And BTW these shoes don’t look great.
28% of Millennials Expect BTC to fund retirement: A survey of 4,000 millennials found that 38% own some sort of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency and 28% believe Bitcoin or cryptocurrency will fund their retirement. I may be reading a bit between the lines here, but this makes me feel like a lot of millennials or the portrayal of millennials in Bitcoin is that they are in it for the fiat gains. This almost makes it seem like millennials are only concerned with number go up (NGU for the Bitcoin Twitter peeps), but my hope is people in the “crypto” world open their eyes to the benefits of Bitcoin and realize it is Bitcoin and only Bitcoin.
Russian Tax Authority purposes use of Bitcoin in Foreign Trade: The Russian Federal Tax Authority is making amends to their digital asset bill that will allow Russian authorities to transact foreign trade in Bitcoin. I believe this is a HUGE step in adoption and drastically hurts the power of the USD. Generally countries conduct deals/trades in another currency outside of the currencies of the countries making the deal, which usually has been the USD but not as of late. Outside of the USD, other foreign currencies have been used but at the end of the day these other currencies are backed by the USD. Now that Russia has approved Bitcoin for foreign transactions, other countries will have to consider using Bitcoin when transacting with Russia.
US Treasury Attempting to Crack down on Russia BTC Miners: Recently, Russia’s changes to their digital asset bill (also mentioned above) have given a positive outlook for Bitcoin mining in Russia. Now the United States is placing sanctions that “seek to impede the capacity for individuals to receive fiat payments” for Bitcoin mining. Compass Mining has already ceased all business with partners who have mining operations in Russia. Russia currently has the 3rd highest hashrate of any country and similarly to Canada, has a lot of natural resources which can be used to harvest energy for Bitcoin miners. It seems the US will stop companies with partnerships in Russia, but this could lead to Russian companies obtaining energy and mining on their own. In the end, Bitcoin will be fine but will companies that are forced to halt operations in Russia? Time will tell.
Australia Launches Spot Bitcoin ETF: This is an interesting one because it is unlike any other Bitcoin ETF that has been launched. Instead of holding the physical Bitcoin asset, the Australian Spot Bitcoin ETF will hold other Bitcoin ETFs, namely Canada’s Purpose Bitcoin ETF that launched last year. Australia has said that they are ramping up the Bitcoin and digital assets bill in order to keep up with the times and due to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. I’m sure it will do well as all other Bitcoin related investment vehicles have, but it is interesting that Australia is avoiding having an ETF that holds the physical asset of Bitcoin. We’ll see how successful this will actually be with that slight change, or
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A quick look on chain:
Current price: $40,551
Market Cap: $755.3B
Spent Output Profit Ratio: 1.00162
Current block height: 731329
Mean block interval: 10min. 45sec.
Meme of the Week
What would the BTC community do without memes? Every week on State of Bitcoin, we feature our favorite meme of the previous week. If you create or see a meme that you like and want us to consider featuring it, tag us on Twitter or instagram (both @Greencandleit)! This week we’re featuring a meme we came across on the @swanbitcoin page:
Video Version!
For our complete rip, check us out on the pod:
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Happy Friday everyone - get after it this weekend!
Brandon
Disclosure: The authors of this writing hold positions in cryptocurrency mentioned in this article. That cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. The article was written by Brandon Keys and occasionally a guest writer; it expresses the author's own opinions. They are not receiving compensation for it. The information presented in this article is for informational purposes only and in no way should be construed as financial advice or recommendation to buy or sell any stock or cryptocurrency. None of the authors of this article are financial advisors. I encourage all readers to do further research and do your own due diligence before making any investments.